4 ms·

Europe is changing social media for the better – the US can do it, too

14 points by mpweiher 3y ago

hunglee2 3y ago
The issue is - as ever - what 'harmful information' is and who gets to define and police that. The EU is overly confident in it's benevolent paternalism; I hope that US Gov has greater humility
- darthrupert 3y ago
  That's moral subjectivism, which is objectively wrong ;) Seriously though, even if there exist risks, the goal is improvement, not perfection. There are people who specialize in things like this, moral philosophers for instance. It's actually possible to know things in this space.
  - john_the_writer 3y ago
    Correct. But which one of your friends or relatives would you appoint as the person who gets to determine what you say on any topic? Do masks work? How about the vaccine, did it stop you from getting it? Did it stop you from spreading it? Did the lock down last 2 weeks. Was 2 months long enough. Would people leave their bluetooth on, so the tracking app could work? Were the tracking apps secure? Did the tracking apps that cost Australia 100mil actually work? The experts all said yes and they also all said no. What is hate speech? Is saying Picnic hate speech?
    - darthrupert 3y ago
      Not all of those juxtapositions are equal, but let's not go into that. I think it's a bit defeatist and therefore wrong to say that because some people who claim to be experts are giving lousy advice we should stop using experts. I think the way forward is to teach better and more impartial experts, not stop using experts altogether.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > I hope that US Gov has greater humility Humility from the US? Surely you jest. On the other hand, the US is highly resistant to government regulation, because our politicans are bought and sold by those who would be regulated.
- SenAnder 3y ago
  Harmful and hateful, as distinct from false. Even true information gets censored if someone decides it qualifies as either of those terms. Plus all the false positives, as social media gets penalized for accidentally leaving those up, but faces no consequences for over-censoring. In practice they will outsource this to some "best practices" "private" (government approved) censor to avoid liability.
gsatic 3y ago
Social medias prime feature is broadcast capability. For free. In other forms of media (books, newspapers, radio, tv, phones/sms, chat, email) if you try to broadcast your important thoughts to everyone on the planet you get a giant bill. Speech was free. But Broadcast capability was not. The unintented main feature of social media is broadcast being free. And the main unanswered question is why should it be free? If all the neurons in your brain were broadcasting simultaneously to every other neuron the only outcome is seizures. The EU has not answered this. It has instead told the platforms they will be held responsible for seizures. Someone has to come up with better answers about how we all coordinate broadcasting. Otherwise we will keep seeing scary and shocking seizures.
veavo 3y ago
[flagged]
- malermeister 3y ago
  One could also call it "moderation", if one wanted to use less loaded terms. Is it censorship when dang calls you out and threatens a ban for starting a flamewar? Is it censorship when a spammer gets banned? What about gmail's spam filter? Is that automated censorship?
  - DoItToMe81 3y ago
    The bill sets up a system where content legal in one area can be banned because it's illegal in another. Even if it's not directly censorious (it is), nations like Hungary have already had their governments state they intend to abuse such bills for the purpose of cross-border censorship.
    - malermeister 3y ago
      Hungary is a huge problem in general. It's time we stripped them of their membership.
  - veavo 3y ago
    For a long time people said that deleting comments on social media wasn't censorship because it was done by private companies, and I agreed. Now it is the state mandating censorship. Can we call a spade a spade?
    - malermeister 3y ago
      > For a long time people said that deleting comments on social media wasn't censorship because it was done by private companies, and I agreed. I feel like that is bad reasoning. If the state is a democratic one, wouldn't a democratically elected censor/moderator (pick your framing, it's the same thing) be better than one that is accountable only to investors?
happytiger 3y ago
There is no “better” or “worse” social media. It’s like calling it a less harmful cancer. Can we stop pretending this is innovation and move on. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/10/15/64-of-americans-say-social-media-have-a-mostly-negative-effect-on-the-way-things-are-going-in-the-u-s-today/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/10/15/64-of-ame... https://socialmediavictims.org/mental-health/self-esteem/ https://socialmediavictims.org/mental-health/self-esteem/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7905185/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7905185/ https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/social-media-profound-risk-kids-teens-us-surgeon/story?id=99537853 https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/social-media-profound-risk... https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/teachers-union-issues-report-calling-out-extremely-negative-impact-of-social-media-on-education-students-mental-health-self-esteem-harm-addiction-developmental-issues-safety-counselors-principle-clout-trends-tiktok-challenge-instagram-medicine-wellness https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/teachers-union-issue... https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/study-social-media-use-linked-to-decline-mental-health https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/study-social-m... Sure let’s debate what version we have to live with, but not whether we should continue the experiment in the first place. Social media isn’t inevitable. We could just say no thanks and move on. It’s not too late (yet) imo for society to choose to say no thank you. There will come a day when it becomes completely inconceivable to have a society without it, but even the fact that you could consider it not being there proves we aren’t at that point yet. (Posted on social media).
- LoveMortuus 3y ago
  >There is no “better” or “worse” social media. It’s like calling it a less harmful cancer. The difference between less harmful and more harmful cancer could be the difference between life and death. I think any steps towards a more human friendly platforms are welcome. Kind of like the "boil a frog" thing, but in the opposite direction.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > The difference between less harmful and more harmful cancer could be the difference between life and death. This is a strange analogy. Of course some forms of cancer are more treatable than others, especially when detected early, but the best "treatment" for cancer is to avoid it in the first place. There's no realistic, sensical way to move people from getting getting more harmful forms of cancer to to less harmful forms of cancer. In fact, it would be absolutely absurd to try somehow to encourage people to get less harmful forms of cancer. All of the encouragement should be directed at avoiding behaviors that lead to cancer.
mimd 3y ago
She's worried the serfs might start using vpns.

14 points by mpweiher 3y ago

The issue is - as ever - what 'harmful information' is and who gets to define and police that. The EU is overly confident in it's benevolent paternalism; I hope that US Gov has greater humility

darthrupert 3y ago
That's moral subjectivism, which is objectively wrong ;) Seriously though, even if there exist risks, the goal is improvement, not perfection. There are people who specialize in things like this, moral philosophers for instance. It's actually possible to know things in this space.
- john_the_writer 3y ago
  Correct. But which one of your friends or relatives would you appoint as the person who gets to determine what you say on any topic? Do masks work? How about the vaccine, did it stop you from getting it? Did it stop you from spreading it? Did the lock down last 2 weeks. Was 2 months long enough. Would people leave their bluetooth on, so the tracking app could work? Were the tracking apps secure? Did the tracking apps that cost Australia 100mil actually work? The experts all said yes and they also all said no. What is hate speech? Is saying Picnic hate speech?
  - darthrupert 3y ago
    Not all of those juxtapositions are equal, but let's not go into that. I think it's a bit defeatist and therefore wrong to say that because some people who claim to be experts are giving lousy advice we should stop using experts. I think the way forward is to teach better and more impartial experts, not stop using experts altogether.
lapcat 3y ago
> I hope that US Gov has greater humility Humility from the US? Surely you jest. On the other hand, the US is highly resistant to government regulation, because our politicans are bought and sold by those who would be regulated.
SenAnder 3y ago
Harmful and hateful, as distinct from false. Even true information gets censored if someone decides it qualifies as either of those terms. Plus all the false positives, as social media gets penalized for accidentally leaving those up, but faces no consequences for over-censoring. In practice they will outsource this to some "best practices" "private" (government approved) censor to avoid liability.

gsatic 3y ago

Social medias prime feature is broadcast capability. For free. In other forms of media (books, newspapers, radio, tv, phones/sms, chat, email) if you try to broadcast your important thoughts to everyone on the planet you get a giant bill. Speech was free. But Broadcast capability was not. The unintented main feature of social media is broadcast being free. And the main unanswered question is why should it be free? If all the neurons in your brain were broadcasting simultaneously to every other neuron the only outcome is seizures. The EU has not answered this. It has instead told the platforms they will be held responsible for seizures. Someone has to come up with better answers about how we all coordinate broadcasting. Otherwise we will keep seeing scary and shocking seizures.

veavo 3y ago

[flagged]

malermeister 3y ago
One could also call it "moderation", if one wanted to use less loaded terms. Is it censorship when dang calls you out and threatens a ban for starting a flamewar? Is it censorship when a spammer gets banned? What about gmail's spam filter? Is that automated censorship?
- DoItToMe81 3y ago
  The bill sets up a system where content legal in one area can be banned because it's illegal in another. Even if it's not directly censorious (it is), nations like Hungary have already had their governments state they intend to abuse such bills for the purpose of cross-border censorship.
  - malermeister 3y ago
    Hungary is a huge problem in general. It's time we stripped them of their membership.
- veavo 3y ago
  For a long time people said that deleting comments on social media wasn't censorship because it was done by private companies, and I agreed. Now it is the state mandating censorship. Can we call a spade a spade?
  - malermeister 3y ago
    > For a long time people said that deleting comments on social media wasn't censorship because it was done by private companies, and I agreed. I feel like that is bad reasoning. If the state is a democratic one, wouldn't a democratically elected censor/moderator (pick your framing, it's the same thing) be better than one that is accountable only to investors?

happytiger 3y ago

There is no “better” or “worse” social media. It’s like calling it a less harmful cancer. Can we stop pretending this is innovation and move on. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/10/15/64-of-americans-say-social-media-have-a-mostly-negative-effect-on-the-way-things-are-going-in-the-u-s-today/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/10/15/64-of-ame... https://socialmediavictims.org/mental-health/self-esteem/ https://socialmediavictims.org/mental-health/self-esteem/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7905185/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7905185/ https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/social-media-profound-risk-kids-teens-us-surgeon/story?id=99537853 https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/social-media-profound-risk... https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/teachers-union-issues-report-calling-out-extremely-negative-impact-of-social-media-on-education-students-mental-health-self-esteem-harm-addiction-developmental-issues-safety-counselors-principle-clout-trends-tiktok-challenge-instagram-medicine-wellness https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/teachers-union-issue... https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/study-social-media-use-linked-to-decline-mental-health https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/study-social-m... Sure let’s debate what version we have to live with, but not whether we should continue the experiment in the first place. Social media isn’t inevitable. We could just say no thanks and move on. It’s not too late (yet) imo for society to choose to say no thank you. There will come a day when it becomes completely inconceivable to have a society without it, but even the fact that you could consider it not being there proves we aren’t at that point yet. (Posted on social media).

LoveMortuus 3y ago
>There is no “better” or “worse” social media. It’s like calling it a less harmful cancer. The difference between less harmful and more harmful cancer could be the difference between life and death. I think any steps towards a more human friendly platforms are welcome. Kind of like the "boil a frog" thing, but in the opposite direction.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > The difference between less harmful and more harmful cancer could be the difference between life and death. This is a strange analogy. Of course some forms of cancer are more treatable than others, especially when detected early, but the best "treatment" for cancer is to avoid it in the first place. There's no realistic, sensical way to move people from getting getting more harmful forms of cancer to to less harmful forms of cancer. In fact, it would be absolutely absurd to try somehow to encourage people to get less harmful forms of cancer. All of the encouragement should be directed at avoiding behaviors that lead to cancer.

mimd 3y ago

She's worried the serfs might start using vpns.